The US has the highest retail square foot per capita by a long shot.

This is old but even with the mall apocalypse, we haven’t had a reduction from 20+ sq ft per person to the 3-4 normal in Western Europe and Japan. https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i...

I would actually say the (indoor) mall apocalypse is a contributing factor since for all their faults, malls were third places in a way that strip shopping centers are not.

At least for retail the problem is moreso that lenders and landlords are playing hot potato with inflated rent and extend and pretend; some(most?all?) commercial loans go into default if rent goes below a certain amount

Not a super useful metric because third places probably wouldn’t be zoned residential. This is like saying 75% of fruits are apples, so there’s no room for asparagus

Ideally they would be in a place zoned residential, just not exclusively residential. If everything is zoned for only single family homes, there won't be a third place nearby. The density is low and it's not mixed use.